Atatürk Istanbul: double victory for Turkish ladies

3/16/2008 – Betül Cemre Yildiz, 18-year-old Turkish talent, had a single draw in the first four rounds of the women's super-tournament in Turkey. In round five she scored an attacking win against IM Irina Krush of the US. Meanwhile IM Ekaterina Atalik, Turkey's strongest female player, defeated Ukrainian IM Anna Ushenina. Celebrations all around in Istanbul. Round five report.

Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. Start your personal success story with ChessBase 14 and enjoy your chess even more!

Along with the ChessBase 14 program you can access the Live Database of 8 million games, and receive three months of free ChesssBase Account Premium membership and all of our online apps! Have a look today!

İş Bankası - Atatürk International Women Masters Chess Tournament

The tournament, announced
in December last year, will take place from March 10th (arrival) to March 21
(departure) 2008. The venue is the İş Bankası Towers Complex,
which has a total area of 225,000 square meters. It is the largest of its kind
on the European continent. Games start at 14:30h local time (= GMT +2h). March
19 is a free day. The games are being broadcast on Playchess.com.

12...Bg4. 12...Bxd4 does not work due to 13.Rxc8 Bxf2+ 14.Kxf2
Qxc8 15.Qa1. While the black pieces are yet to be developed White's men are
ready to start attacking. We did not even mention the material balance for White.

13.d5 Nd7 14.h3 Bxf3 15.Bxf3 Rc8 16.0-0 Rxc1 17.Qxc1 f5 18.exf5 Ne5.
18...gxf5 would not be that good since white would easily make her own two bishops
work efficiently. 19.d6 exd6 20.Bxb7. White has to keep her two bishops, intending
to transfer her bishop to the a2-g8 diagonal.

19.Bd1 gxf5. 19...Qxd5 of course fails to 20.Bb3. A better
way to continue would be getting the rook in the play and placing the knight
at f7 blocking the vital diagonal and later transferring the knight to d6. 19...Rxf5
20.Bb3 Nf7

20.Bb3. 20.Qa3 Nc4.

20...Qd6? This is a decisive mistake on black's part. In
the post-mortem black showed she was afraid of 20...Kh8 21.Bc3 Qd6 22.Re1 Rc8
23.Qe3 Nf3+ 24.Qxf3 Rxc3 (24...Bxc3 25.Re6) 25.Qxf5 and White has the upper
hand, but it is still less evil than the game.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.Qe2 b5 6.Bb3 Bc5 7.0-0 0-0 8.d3
d6 9.c3 h6 10.Rd1 Re8 11.h3 Bb6 12.Nbd2 Be6. In this position Black
has an easy game, since Nh5-Nf4 is perfectly possible. Our silicon friends say
exchanging the bishop is a better way to continue, but nevertheless it is difficult
for White to play d4 here and play for the centre. Apparently, there does not
seem to be a very good and effective manoeuvre in the closed position.

13.Bc2 Nh5 14.Nf1 Qf6 15.N3h2 Ne7 16.Qf3 Nf4 17.Bxf4 exf4 18.a4 Ng6
19.d4 Qg5. Now Black has even better position, very close to winning
a pawn after Nh4. White tries to make it difficult for Black to achieve more.

53...f4. According to GM Viktor Bologan, who was following
the game with us at this point, this is not most the accurate plan here, since
Black should place the connected passed pawns on light squares. 53...Rf8 54.Rd7
with the idea of advancing c pawn since (the immediate 54.c5 fails to 54...Rd8+
55.Kc6 Rc8+ 56.Rc7 Rxc7+ 57.Kxc7 Bxc5) 54...g5 55.c5 Bf4+ 56.Kc6 g4 would be
one way to continue following the advice in this position.

54.Rd7. Nevertheless Black finds a way to advance her connected
passed pawns and win her third game in the tournament. 54...Rc8 55.Rf7+
Kg5 56.Kd7 Rb8 57.Kc7 Rb6 58.Re7 Rf6 59.Bf3 Kh4 60.Re5 g5 61.c5 g4 62.Bd1 Bxc5.
Black can now sacrifice her bishop for the pawn, since her pawns are
sufficiently advanced, her king is very active and supporting those pawns together
with the rook, while the white king is misplaced away from the heat of the battle.
63.Rxc5 f3 64.Rc4 Kg3 65.Kd7. 65.Rc3 Kh2 66.Rc2+ Kh3 67.Rf2
Kg3 should be easily winning for Black. 65...Rf4 66.Rc1 f2 67.Be2 Re4
68.Bb5 Re1 69.Rc3+ Kh4 70.Kd6 f1Q 71.Bxf1 Rxf1 72.Ke5 g3 73.Rc2 Kh3 74.Ke4 0-1.
[Click to replay]

IM Anna Ushenina of Ukraine

Turkish talent Betul Cemre Yildiz, 18, who won her first game in this tournament

This position seems to be equal, but Black's pieces are more reserved. In
the positions when black bishop on g7 is controlled by the central pawn chain
ending on e5, White generally has a slight advantage.

12...b5 13.Be3 a5 14.Nbd2 Ba6 15.h4 Ne6 16.h5 Qc7 17.g3 Rfd8 18.hxg6.
18.h6 is another way to continue the game. Still White would have retained some
advantage, but the text is also quite logical.

18...hxg6 19.Bh3. Betül says here that she is already
planning to play on h-file. Black is definitely going to play on the queen side,
fixing the pawns by playing b4 and looking for holes. 19...Bc8 20.Kg2.
With the intentions on playing on the h-file. 20...b4 21.cxb4 Nxb4 22.Rc1
Qb7 23.Rh1 Bd7 24.Qg1 f6 25.Bxe6+. 25.Nh4 would be another way to continue
the game, but getting rid of the bishop and removing some defensive pieces is
quite logical way to continue.]

25...Bxe6 26.Bh6 Kf7. Another option would be keeping the
white bishop in the path of heavy pieces but it does not seem to bring happiness
to Black: 26...Bh8 27.Qh2 Kf7 28.exf6 exf6 29.Bf4. Both the open h-file and
ideas like Rc7 are very dangerous for Black.

27.Ng5+! A spectacular sacrifice, not objectively winning
according to the computer, but nevertheless difficult to refute on board. 27...fxg5
28.Nf3 Bxh6. This seems to be the only defence. If the second knight
comes to g5 then Black's king would be in a big trouble. Therefore, Black should
find a way to prevent this. Giving back the extra piece looks like the only
logical way to do it. 28...Bf6!! 29.exf6 exf6 30.Bxg5 Rh8. 29.Rxh6

29...Ra6. This seems to be the decisive mistake. Computers
suggest a better defence here might be 29...Qb6 30.Nxg5+ Ke8. However, White
can still maintain the initiative and the upper hand. 31.Qh2. This is a multi-task
move, getting the queen into the play. The queen is now supporting the rook
on h file and the idea is that White can capture g6 pawn without having to worry
about discovered checks on h3. (31.Rc5 Nd3 32.Rc3 Bf5 33.Rh8+ Kd7 34.e6+ Bxe6
35.Rxd8+ Rxd8 36.Rxd3 Bf5) 31...Kd7 32.Rxg6 Rh8 (32...Bh3+ 33.Qxh3+) 33.Rh6
Rxh6 34.Qxh6;
29...Kg7 30.Nxg5 Kxh6 31.Qh2+ Kg7 32.Qh7+

30.Qh2 Rg8.. 30...Ke8 and trying to escape does not save
the game either: 31.Nxg5 Bg4 the other moves fail to Qh3 (31...Rc6 32.Nxe6 Rxe6
33.Qh3; 31...Nd3 32.Nxe6 Rxe6 33.Qh3) 32.Qh4 Bf5 33.g4 Be4+ 34.f3 and now e6
is coming so Black has huge problems.

31.Rh8 Ke8 32.Nxg5 Rxh8 33.Qxh8+ Kd7 34.Nh7. Now there is
no accurate defense against the devastating check on f8:

34...Rc6. 34...Ra8 fails to 35.Nf6+ exf6 36.Qg7+ and the black
queen falls. 35.Nf8+ Kc7 36.Nxe6+ Kb6 37.Qd8+. An inspired
attack by the Turkish player against a much higher rated opponent. 1-0.
[Click to replay]

See also

12/30/2017 – The "King Salman World Blitz & Rapid Championships 2017" in Riyadh from Decemer 26th to 30th. At the half way point of the Blitz Championship, the defending champ Sergey Karjakin leads with 9 / 11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a half point back followed by Peter Svidler and a trio of Chinese: Wang, Ding and Yu on 8 / 11. In the Women's Pia Cramling has a full point lead with 9½ / 11. Watch live with Rounds 11 to 22 from 12:00 Noon CET (6:00 AM EST) on Saturday with commentary by E. Miroshnichenko & WGM K. Tsatsalashvili.

See also

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

Video

On this 60 mins video we are going to concentrate on a simple, very solid idea in the main line Scandinavian, which even Magnus Carlsen has used to win games. Black focusses on making his life easy in the opening and forces White to work very hard to get advantage – but it is doubtful if White can get an advantage. Club players are always on the lookout for effective, time-saving solutions and here we have just that. Accompany FIDE Senior Trainer and IM Andrew Martin on this 60 mins video. You can learn a new opening system in 60 mins and start to play it with confidence on the very same day!

"Simple yet aggressive!" Enjoy this new exciting DVD by Simon Williams. Let the famouns Grandmaster from England show you how to gain a very exciting yet well founded opening game with the London System (1.d4 d5 2.Bf4).